But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail.

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo.

My father urged Alan [Lomax] not to repeat the mistakes of the European folklorists who, a century ago, had collected these peasant songs and then arranged them for part choir and accompanied them on piano, and then told the young people of their country, "Don't change a note, this is our sacred heritage." Father said, whether it's a fiddle tune or a gospel song, learn it right off the record from the people who grew up with it. Don't just learn it from a piece of paper.

I used to agree with Kurt Vonnegut, who said that the human race has a snowball's chance in hell of being around a hundred years from now.

You can't work on everything all the time, so start where you are.

Food is one of the great organizing tools.

It's a terrible thing being a patriarch. I don't even have a gray beard. But people keep calling me up for advice.